Astronomers have long known that powerful cosmic winds can sometimes blow through galaxies, sweeping out interstellar material and stopping future star formation. Now they have a clearer snapshot of how it happens.

A ripple in the outskirts of the Milky Way -- and a hunch -- led Rochester Institute of Technology astrophysicist Sukanya Chakrabarti to a previously undetected dwarf galaxy hidden under a veil of dark matter.

A team led by Andrea Kunder from the Leibniz Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP) measured the velocity of a sample of 100 old RR Lyrae stars* thought to reside in the galactic bulge, the central group of stars found in most galaxies.

Sibling suns -- made famous in the "Star Wars" scene where Luke Skywalker gazes toward a double sunset -- and the planets around them may be more common than we've thought, and Cornell University astronomers are presenting new ideas on how to find them.